{Movie} Review: Ender's Game

Ender's Game (2013)
Starring:  Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis
Genre:  Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi 

The Earth was ravaged by the Formics, an alien race seemingly determined to destroy humanity. Seventy years later, the people of Earth remain banded together to prevent their own annihilation from this technologically superior alien species. Ender Wiggin, a quiet but brilliant boy, may become the savior of the human race. He is separated from his beloved sister and his terrifying brother and brought to battle school in orbit around earth. He will be tested and honed into an empathetic killer who begins to despise what he does as he learns to fight in hopes of saving Earth and his family.  (from IMDb)

My thoughts:
I have been ill for some time and even though I do have the audiobook, I decided to watch the movie of Ender's Game instead.  

I was under the impression that this would be full blown action sci-fi movie from start to finish.  And there was action, a lot of action, with beautiful special effects but this movie was more about the relationship between Ender and Colonel Graff  - his teacher and mentor. (not something that my husband was very interested in -so for him, this movie came up short.)

Ender and Colonel Graff have a difficult relationship and it was hard seeing that Ender was purposely put into conflict with his schoolmates to make him become the leader he was meant to be.  Colonel Graff was continuously very hard on him and kept on saying "you are Earth's last hope".  A lot of pressure for a young boy.  I thought that came through very clearly throughout the movie. 

Even though I enjoyed the movie and was caught up in the excitement of the war, I am not sure that I will be listening to the book or any of the sequels.  I have been reading some reviews of devoted fans of the books and I am not sure if this was maybe a compilation of parts from more than the first book.  Either way, I did not enjoy the ending of the movie and am not really interested in where it might lead in the rest of the series.

But for a few hours of fun, this fit the bill perfectly.

 

 Perfect for a lazy afternoon.